


Swamp Creature

by Mattecat



Series: Digitaltimeshipping & Related Stories [3]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 03:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattecat/pseuds/Mattecat
Summary: Krux spends some weeks in a swamp trying to raise the baby that used to be his worst enemy.





	Swamp Creature

**Author's Note:**

> the title is an adaptation of an inside joke and I can't explain it
> 
> anyway. yeah.
> 
> my brain is broken idk how to tag this. acronix is a trans lady here bc it's set in the same universe as my digitaltimeshipping stories, but this is mainly a krux story.
> 
> warnings: someone gets shot with a gun, which will alarm many of the people who I shared previews of this fic with bc it shows NO signs of getting that dark in the beginning, so just. be aware. thanks.

He's covered in swamp muck, and the bundle in his arms is screaming. Krux wades out onto dry land, mumbling nonsense to try and soothe the crying baby. Wu refuses to quiet. Krux guesses he'd be upset, too, if he was suddenly aged down to a baby. "Serves you right," he tells Wu, which accomplishes absolutely nothing.

His body still aches from the fall out of the portal. Krux sits on a rock and looks around. The swamp is empty of the Vermillion Warriors he had been breeding; they must have been exterminated after everything was over. Krux can't find it within himself to care. They were disposable, mindless creatures, made solely to do his bidding – his and Acronix's.

_"I'm too old to change my ways. I'm sorry, Acronix."_

Assuming Acronix got out of the portal safely, she would have arrived in the past, relative to now. How big the gap between them is, Krux isn't sure. It's been long enough for all the Vermillion to be driven out, but not long enough that the swamp looks drastically different – he can still see some of the old structures, intact. Krux adjusts his grip on Wu, who continues to scream.

"Could you shut up?" he says tiredly, knowing Wu won't listen. He's just a baby, after all. Sure enough, Wu keeps wailing, his face red, tears staining his pudgy cheeks. Krux shakes his head and stands up.

There's no one in the blacksmith's forge. Everything is covered in dust. Krux makes a bundle of blankets on the bed to put Wu in, leaving him there so he can look through the rest of the house for food. There's not a lot of options; hopefully Wu is physically old enough to eat real food, because there's no baby formula. Krux finds an old can of green beans and mashes it up, grumbling to himself the whole time.

Wu's crying stops. Krux pauses for a moment, then rushes back into the bedroom to stop him from crawling straight off the bed. "You're a stupid baby," he tells Wu, who babbles and reaches for the edge. "What are you trying to do?"

"Gaba," says Wu.

"No," says Krux, and he wraps the blanket around Wu so he can't crawl anymore. Wu proceeds to cry again.

The green beans – well, Krux has no way of knowing if the expiration date has passed, so he tastes some of them and deems them acceptable. Wu stops crying when Krux comes with the plate, and manages to squirm out of the blankets. "Aaaa," he says, reaching for them and almost falling off the bed again. Krux grabs him and wonders, not for the first time, what on earth he's doing.

"You are a stupid baby," he says again, "and as an adult, you ruined my life. I worked for forty years to get revenge, and here I am, feeding you green beans, and – I forgot a spoon, didn't I."

Wu grabs a tiny fistful of mashed green beans and slaps it on his face. Krux sighs.

Most of the green beans manage to get eaten; Krux didn't use the whole can, so there should be some left for later. He manages to make a functional diaper out of an old pillowcase, and lies down on the floor. He's exhausted, and his clothes are still wet from the swamp. He'll just have a short lie down, he thinks. Just for a minute.

He wakes up to Wu pulling at his mustache.

Krux groans and pushes the baby off his chest. Wu giggles and tries to climb back up again. Krux sits up and rubs his eyes. "Stop that," he says. "Stay there."

He leaves Wu on the floor and goes to change out of his filthy clothes. There's still some shirts and pants left from the previous inhabitants of the blacksmith shop; he puts on a clean outfit and looks at himself in the mirror. He looks exhausted, and the makeup around his eyes has smeared. He runs the water – it's a miracle there's still running water here – and washes the rest of it off.

What is he going to do?

He can't stay in the swamp forever. Not with a baby. Krux doesn't want to keep Wu around for much longer, either – what he needs to do is leave the baby at the nearest safe place for him, and then… go back and stay in the swamp forever, probably. There's really no other options.

There's a loud _thunk_ from the next room over, and Wu starts to wail. Krux groans loudly and goes back to see what the baby has done this time.

* * *

Wu can, apparently, walk for short distances while holding on to something. Krux learns quickly that the blacksmith's shop is not a safe place for a baby learning how to walk. After removing all the sharp objects from the ground level and putting them on the high shelves, he's too tired to head to the nearest village, and they spend the night there. Wu wakes him up a few times, but Krux does manage to get some much-needed sleep.

The next day, Krux mashes up more food for Wu and goes to salvage what he can from the old base. There's nothing much of value – more food, of questionable edibility. Krux has no way of knowing if the expiration date has passed. He should really find the nearest village, he thinks, and then he just doesn't get around to leaving that day.

The third day, Wu cries and cries until Krux brings him outside, which quiets him. "Spent too long cooped up in there, huh?" Krux says while Wu grips his hand and stands on wobbly legs, looking around with wide eyes. The baby's next action is to pick up a handful of mud and try to eat it, so Krux brings him back in. They don't go to a village.

The fourth day, he finds a BorgWatch in the abandoned base. Somehow, it still has power – it gives him the time and date before the battery goes dead.

Krux has to sit down for a few moments, while Wu lies on the ground and plays with the powered-down watch.

A year. It's only been a year. That means the ninja are still around. Krux thinks of Acronix – she would have arrived in the past year, though what's become of her, Krux has no way of knowing. Have the ninja found her? Thrown her in prison? Worse?

He could find out, he thinks. Go to the nearest village. Look for news. Find out what happened to his sister. Drop this baby on someone else who can take care of him better.

He doesn't want to.

He watches Wu, who has managed to stand himself up and hobble in Krux's general direction. "Kuh," he says, holding out the BorgWatch and promptly falling over.

Krux manages to catch him before he hurts himself. "You are such a dumb baby," he says.

Wu giggles. "Kuh!" he says again. "Kuh-uhh…"

Krux blinks. "Are you trying to say my name?" he asks.

Wu scrunches up his face. "Kuh… kuss…"

"It's Krux. Can you say 'rrr?' Are you an old enough baby to make R sounds?" Krux pauses. "How old do babies have to be to make the R sound?"

"Cuck!" Wu says gleefully.

Krux decides to take him back inside.

The realization is a relief. Krux doesn't want to rejoin society. He's fine with living here, raising this dumb baby alone, surviving off the canned food that he now knows is safe to eat. He doesn't want to know would happen if he tries to find out what happened to Acronix, doesn't want to find out what happened to her at all. He's fine like this, Krux thinks, and he looks out the window at the stars that are beginning to dot the sky, and picks up Wu to put the baby to bed.

* * *

Two weeks later, they're starting to run out of food.

Krux arranges the remainder of the cans on the counter and grumbles to himself. A trip to the nearest village is inevitable, now, unless he feels like starving to death. Which he doesn't.

Nothing to done; all the complaining in the world won't make food materialize in the old hideout. Krux takes a shower, gets dressed in his cleanest clothes, gives Wu a bath, finds his old disguise, and sets off.

The village is quiet. Krux finds a market and picks out some fresh fruits and vegetables to take back to the swamp. The idea of having food that doesn't come from a can makes his mouth water. He gets some meat, too – there was no meat in the hideout, and he's worried Wu is going to end up with an iron deficiency. Babies his age can eat meat, right?

Wu babbles the entire time, reaching for everything he can reach. A couple of women wave and smile at him, and Wu beams and smiles back. Krux ignores them.

"Kuh," Wu says, reaching for his fake mustache. Krux manages to stop him from ripping it off and revealing his identity – though, without the makeup around his eyes, will anyone actually recognize him?

He was able to find money in the abandoned hideout, though he knows they're going to run out eventually. Oh well, that's a problem for future Krux. "Be patient," he tells Wu while they're paying for the food. "We'll be back home soon."

"Kuhhh," Wu whines. "Kuh-ruh…"

Krux sighs, picks up the bag of food, and leaves in a rush. Wouldn't be good if Wu finally learned to say his name when they were out in public –

– how did Wu know his name?

Krux stops dead in his tracks. Someone almost walks into him, stepping around him with a mumbled curse. Krux collects himself and starts walking again, but his thoughts keep going.

Wu, as a baby, had never heard Krux's name before trying to say it. Maybe it was just baby babbling, but… if Wu still had all his memories, if he _knew who Krux was,_ even as a baby…

Well. That's another problem for future Krux.

* * *

Krux settles into a routine. Once a week, he goes into town to buy food and other miscellaneous supplies, such as a charger for the BorgWatch. As much as he hates technology, the watch has a phone built into it, and he needs a form of contact if he's going to work.

He puts flyers up offering his services as an antique repairman; his first job is fixing an ancient grandfather clock, and Krux is happy to have done a good job. He gets a few calls, enough to afford food, at least. Wu accompanies him on the house calls, and is remarkably well-behaved for a toddler.

He estimates Wu to be about ten months to twelve months old. He's started to put syllables together into words; "kruss" and "bahgwash" and "geen peas." He insists on calling mashed green beans, his favorite food, "geen peas," despite Krux's many attempts to correct him.

The unsettling thing is… Krux is fairly certain he's not "learning" these words like a typical baby would, but instead pulling them out of his memory of his life as Sensei Wu. This is all but confirmed when the toddler mentions "gahmadahn" in his babbling and Krux spits out his drink.

Krux thinks he enjoys this life. It's hard to be sure; he's without Acronix, after all, and he's raising the aged-down iteration of the man he spent forty years plotting his revenge against, and who may in fact still remember him, even as a baby. Krux is not looking forward to _those_ awkward conversations, once Wu grows up. But despite that, this life is enjoyable.

Besides – future Krux won't have to worry about Wu for too long, because future Krux will be in his eighties by the time Wu is a teenager, and by then he'll probably be dead. So present Krux doesn't worry about it.

He has a bad fall a few weeks into his time in the swamp.

Krux is very healthy for someone his age. The only condition he was receiving treatment for was osteoporosis, and he figures he'll be fine without that medication, now that he's in hiding again. Sure, his bones are weaker and more susceptive to breaking, but all he has to do is not fall, right?

Then he falls and feels like an idiot, so that's how that turned out.

He doesn't hear a crack when his arm fractures, so he thinks he's fine, apart from the agonizing pain. Krux picks himself up while Wu asks him, "Kruss 'kay?" Krux is in too much pain to answer, which causes Wu to cry, which helps nothing.

When he gets to a doctor, she confirms that he has a fracture.

"Fuh-rack-sure," Wu sounds out.

"Goddammit," Krux says.

The woman looks at him in concern. "Are you living alone?"

"No," Krux says, and fails to mention that the only other person he's living with is a toddler.

"That's good. You're going to need a lot of help around the house while this is healing. If I may, I can refer you to a doctor in Ninjago City – they'll have access to much better medical technology than we have here."

"Okay," Krux says. He ignores the appointment they make and he doesn't go back to that doctor.

He considers finding another village, but all in all, Krux thinks he's better off rotting in the swamp. He treats his fractured arm with as much care as he can manage and carefully rations out his food. What he has should last him two weeks, maybe more if he's careful. Then he can starve to death or something, and that'll be the end of it.

His brooding is interrupted by Wu tugging at his shirt.

"Geen peas," the toddler says.

Krux groans and slumps back in his chair, staring at the food he's arranged on the table. He can't die when he was a baby to think about, even if that baby is his worst enemy. At the same time, he can't afford the care his arm needs, especially not when he can't work.

He's going to have to think of something else.

* * *

He doesn't think of anything else for a few days, where he rests his arm and tries to keep Wu entertained. He doesn't go back to the village. He still doesn't want to go back, not when he's already missed the appointment with the nice doctor who doesn't know he's essentially living alone. He'll think of something, he tells himself, and then he doesn't.

One day, there's a knock on the door.

Krux figures he's hearing things and ignores it. The knocking returns, followed by a voice. "You home, old man?"

"Just a minute!" he calls back. Wu is picking at his green beans in the high chair Krux bought for him; he leaves him be and goes to answer the door.

He doesn't recognize the woman at the door, with her hair tied up in a ponytail and her face painted gray and white. She grins at him, hands on her hips. Krux closes the door before she can say anything.

"Hey!" she yelps. "Open up!"

"Come back later," Krux says. "I'm not home."

"You think you're funny? How 'bout I come back with reinforcements, we'll see who's funny then!"

"Reinforcements for what?"

The woman cackles. "You didn't think you could hide from us for long, did you, Krux? Or should I say, Sander Saunders?"

"You got it right the first time," Krux says. "And I don't know who you are."

The woman kicks the door open. "You can call me Ultra Violet," she says. "And unless you want more Sons of Garmadon knocking on your door, you'll hand over the baby."

Krux stares at her. "You want to kidnap a baby?" he says. "Why?"

"We don't want just any baby, we need that specific baby. So hand him over!"

Krux shrugs. "Whatever." He moves to the closet that might've been used for coats, once, and takes out a sword.

Ultra Violet doesn't seem threatened. She just laughs. "Really? You think you can beat me? You're an old man with a broken arm, and I –" She reaches to her waist. "– have a gun."

Goddammit. "Are you really going to shoot me over this?" Krux says tiredly. "I'd rather not die today."

"Give me the baby and you won't have to!"

Krux sighs. "Alright, you win. Give me a minute to get him ready, he doesn't like strangers. He'll start screaming if he sees you."

It's a blatant lie; Wu loves everyone he sees, in that "I'm a cute baby and I know it" way. Ultra Violet buys it. "Fine," she says. "Two minutes! That's it!"

"Alright," Krux says, and he puts the sword back, goes into the kitchen, wipes Wu's face clean of drool, and picks up the BorgWatch.

The BorgWatch originally belonged to Cyrus Borg himself; though Krux and Acronix had allowed him to keep it, they had disabled all forms of location tracking and phone functions. Krux has already reenabled the phone; all he has to do is go to the contacts he has still not deleted and pick the right one.

Pixal answers immediately. "Who is this?" she demands, her voice ringing through the building.

"Hey!" Ultra Violet yells, and Krux knows he doesn't have much time.

"It's Krux," he says. "I'm in the swamp with Wu. Someone's –"

He hears the gunshot and is suddenly unable to speak. It takes another moment for the pain to hit.

Krux drops the BorgWatch and staggers backwards, clutching his chest. Wu is screaming. "You should've listened!" Ultra Violet chides, walking in and crushing the BorgWatch under her foot. "You didn't want to die, and I didn't really want to kill you. I didn't even get to tell you about your sister!"

 _Acronix_ –

Ultra Violet laughs. "She's been a real thorn in our side, you know! Her and her boyfriend both! Oh well, it didn't matter in the end – all it took was one of us spotting you in that village, and it didn't take too long to put two and two together. I can't wait to see the look on her face when she finds out you're dead!"

He's not dead yet, Krux wants to say, but it's useless – Ultra Violet picks up the screaming baby and walks out, throwing a smirk over her shoulder as she goes.

He can see Wu reaching for him before the door closes,

and then he doesn't see much of anything.

* * *

Krux wakes up wondering what the hell happened. He doesn't feel the dull ache in his arm, or much sensation at all, and it's hard to form half a coherent thought. He remembers the strange woman showing up at his door, and then his memory does not deign to give him any more details. He's exhausted, and the easiest thing to do is to let himself fall back asleep.

He wakes up again and finds he can feel things again, such as pain with every breath. He's still exhausted, but he can think again, and there a number of pressing concerns he has, such as, where is he, and how is he alive?

"Are you awake?"

Krux turns his head to look at the nurse beside him. She doesn't look at all happy, but maybe that's just her personality. "Where am I?" he asks, his voice hoarse, then mentally kicks himself for forgetting the most important matter. "Where's the baby?"

"You're in Ninjago City," the nurse says. "Wu – the baby, I mean – is with the ninja. You're lucky to be alive, you know."

Krux breathes a sigh of relief, which sends pain through his lungs and makes him cranky. "Who cares," he mutters, and he's fully prepared to let himself pass out again and deal with whatever happens later.

"Your sister does," the nurse says.

* * *

It takes a few days before Krux tells the doctors and nurses to let Acronix see him. He's terrified, but Acronix has been waiting for so long – a year, he thinks to himself – and Krux misses her so much. There's so much he wants to tell her, so much lost time they should've had together… it's horrible, it's unfair, and – and –

Acronix walks in, and Krux forgets everything he was going to say.

She doesn't look much different. She's definitely dressed more femininely than she had the opportunity to, before, and her hair is done up a little differently, but she's still recognizably Acronix. "Krux?" she says, and her voice is familiar, too.

"Acronix," he says. "Acronix, I…"

Acronix sits down in the chair next to the bed. They spend a long few moments just looking at each other, both of them fighting back tears. Krux knows his sister is waiting for him to speak, knows he needs to say something.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "I'm so sorry, Acronix. For everything."

"Why did you come back?"

He's not expecting that question. Krux stares at her blankly for a few moments before answering. "The baby," he says. "I know he's still Wu, but I saw that baby and – God, that stupid evolutionary instinct to take care of small screaming pink things. I couldn't let the baby die with me."

It's a hard thing, admitting that he planned to die on the Iron Doom when he pushed Acronix out. "You can change," he had told her. "I can't. I'm too old, too set in my ways. You're not."

That should've been the end of it, and then the energies of the temporal vortex had aged Wu into a baby and ruined all of Krux's plans.

Acronix wipes her eyes. "I'm angry at you," she mumbles. "And for a long time, I thought you were angry at me. That you didn't want to see me."

"No!" Krux says, with enough force that the pain flares up and he winces. "I thought I was dragging you down with me," he continues. "I didn't want you to ruin your life doing what I wanted."

"Is that what you think I was doing?"

Acronix's voice is pitched high in emotion. Krux has to choose his next words carefully.

"You loved this future," he says. "You loved the technology that I would've gotten rid of. And when I realized – you were going along with my plans because they were _my_ plans, not because you agreed with them. I couldn't let you keep doing that."

Acronix sobs, leans forward in the chair and buries her face in her hands. Krux can no longer hold back his own tears; he lets them fall, contorting his face in an effort to cry silently.

"I missed you," he chokes out. "I missed you so much."

"I thought I was never going to see you again!" Acronix cries. "How could you do that to me?!"

"I'm so, so sorry."

"You should be!" Acronix grabs at the tissue box placed helpfully on a table and drops it on the floor. "Dammit!"

Krux laughs through his tears. "I love you," he says. "Is there anything I can do for you to forgive me?"

Acronix manages to get a tissue and blows her nose. "Don't – don't leave," she says. "Stay with me, you idiot. I don't want to lose you again."

Krux almost mentions that he's forty years older, he doesn't expect to outlive her, then decides to say nothing and reach for her hand. Acronix takes his hand in both of her own and smiles at him.

A thought occurs to him. "Aren't I going to jail?" he asks her. "We did do… all that."

"We're talking it out with the police," Acronix says. "We don't know all your options yet, but you might be able to get by with house arrest."

"I don't have a – wait, who's 'we?'"

Acronix laughs. "So much has happened in the past year, brother! Let me start from the beginning…"

* * *

"You can't keep him," Cole says sternly, while the child in his arms reaches for Krux. "Visits? Sure – but he's our sensei, not yours."

Krux rolls his eyes. "I doubt he can teach you any lessons in his current condition."

"Kruss!" Wu yells. " _Kruss!_ "

"Please let Krux hold the baby," Jay says tiredly. "He's going to throw a fit, and you've seen Wu's fits! I thought being lectured by him was bad, oh no, this is so much worse!"

Cole hands over Wu, who wraps his arms around the old man's neck and giggles. "Kruss," he repeats, then his face falls into a frown. "Kruss 'kay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," Krux tells him. "I didn't miss you at all, by the way."

"Did too," Wu insists.

"He missed you," Jay says. "Which is really unfortunate, considering that you're a bad guy who's under house arrest. This place is a dump, by the way. Does Acronix really live like this? Wait, no, she lives with her boyfriend. Man, this is so weird."

Krux ignores him and sits down on the couch with Wu. "I know you're a stupid baby," he says, "and you don't understand what I'm saying… but I need to ask. If you have all your memories, why…"

Wu stuffs his fingers in his mouth and sucks on them. Krux sighs. "Never mind," he says.

"Geen peas," says Wu.

**THE END**


End file.
